Please don’t search Wikipedia for Packers history

Steve from the United Kingdom

Hi Cliff, I absolutely love your work. It has certainly added to my experience as an overseas Green Bay Packers fan and deepened my knowledge and affection for the team. I’m assuming, given the lack of information I can find on the subject, that this fact is either wrong or obscure but I’m keen to find out which it is. Having seen an article about most pass yards in a single Packers season, I became curious about Lynn Dickey and the 1983 season. I wondered how a quarterback who threw for nearly 4,500 yards in that era somehow didn’t manage a winning record. Scrolling down through Wikipedia I noticed this little nugget: “NFC Central record, Most Interceptions in a Season by a passer other than the quarterback (3, Cliff Lewis).” Lewis is listed as a linebacker so I’m wondering how he managed to throw three interceptions. Was it a special-teams play? How could Bart Starr let it go wrong three times in one season?

Thanks for sharing your insight into what it’s like being a fan from our expanding base beyond the boundaries of the United States. That’s why I copied your entire email, kudos and all.

In response, I’m going to first issue an All Call to Packers fans everywhere! Please don’t trust much of anything you find about Packers history on Wikipedia. And I’m referring to all of its sites: our team history, those devoted to individual players, coaches, stadiums – you name it.

When it comes to Packers history, Wikipedia is like a book full of April Fool’s jokes.

As a quick example, I made a copy of its Green Bay Packers site sometime in the last year and found six factual mistakes in the first 16 sentences. That’s almost an error every other sentence – and they don’t stop flowing.

I just looked at Don Hutson’s page. Under the “NFL career” sub-title, there was a mistake in five of the first eight sentences. On Curly Lambeau’s page, they credited me as the source for two of the first six citations and yet both included misinformation that doesn’t accurately reflect what I’ve written.

Despite knowing full well how irresponsible Wikipedia is when it comes to retelling Packers history, I was utterly dumbfounded when I uncovered what you did about Cliff Lewis at one of its sites. Unbelievable! Yes, Lewis was a linebacker and played special teams for the Packers from 1981-84. But during those four seasons, he never attempted a pass, much less throw three…